CinemaNow - The Guardian

Ashton Kutcher, who lends his voice to one of the key characters in Open Season, also stars in The Guardian, in which he plays a rookie at the Coast Guard rescue Swimmers school opposite Kevin Costner, who plays his commander. They and the movie get mixed reviews. Jan Stuart in Newsday writes, "Kevin Costner's got the stuff. Ashton Kutcher's got the stuff. Their new adventure picture's got the stuff, and then some. The Guardian is so pumped with real-man hormones and heroic self-sacrifice, you'll want to toss all your friends into a rip tide so you can jump in and pull them out." Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun also pours out praise for the film, writing: "The Guardian "is that rarest of cinematic commodities: an action movie displaying brains and heart and the opportunity for its stars to do something more than keep the narrative flowing between explosions." Some critics take a kind of middle ground, like A.O. Scott in the New York Times, who writes that the movie is actually five pictures in one: "an action movie, a basic training movie, a swaggering sea adventure, a home front melodrama and an inspiring tough-love heroic teacher fable. If the aggregate of all these movies is exhausting and occasionally overwrought, some of the parts are stirring and effective, though not exactly fresh." Another middle-grounder is Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News, who observes, "Despite the punishing length and fidelity to formula, The Guardian isn't a disaster and is often quite watchable." Another left-handed compliment comes from Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times, who writes, "It's entertaining enough, but strictly in a wait-for-cable way." Or as Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post puts it: "Underneath the storm and clang of The Guardian lies a modest little B-grade '40s service melodrama, of a subspecies called the unit tribute."

Good movie